Sony BMG CEO bemoans lack of acts EMI and Warner are breaking

16:23 | Tuesday October 28, 2008

Doherty was joined by promoter Harvey Goldsmith, MySpace UK country manager Anthony Lukom, EA Games worldwide executive of music and marketing Steve Schnur and Chop Shop Music Supervision founder Alex Patsavas at the event’s global keynote, which took place at London’s Cumberland hotel yesterday.

Subjects for discussion at the keynote included the importance to the music industry of revenue from computer games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero and the ways in which recorded music can move forward by building trust with the artist community.

However, Doherty raised eyebrows by his very frank assessment of current recorded music business, as he pointed to what he saw as a lack of success presently in regard to EMI and Warner breaking new artists. “Having two very big companies in Sony BMG and Universal [in terms of breaking acts] is not healthy. EMI and Warner are nowhere and it is not good. They are not breaking new artists. My hope is that they get their acts together," he said.

He also quoted market share figures, which showed that Sony BMG and Universal between them had an 83% share of the artist albums market last week.

Doherty's comments follow Goldsmith suggesting that only Universal and Sony BMG among the majors had re-invented themselves. “[Record companies] have had to re-invent themselves and own up internally that there was a problem. Those that re-invented themselves will be the winners. The others lost the plot.”

Musexpo Europe is taking place over two days, with a mixture of panel sessions and live showcases.